Battalion Chief Jim Niesel: Firefighter, rescuer, reviver, baby deliverer

If there was a rescue to be had in his 36 years of being a paramedic and firefighter, Fox River and Countryside Fire Rescue District Battalion Chief Jim Niesel has done it.

He delivered two babies whose parents later brought them into the station as little kids to say hello. They’re now 20 and 25.

He helped revive people who were technically dead.

“Numerous times a husband or wife comes back to the station to say thank you,” Niesel said.

He was part of the team that responded to a terrible accident in Wayne involving a driver trapped inside a crashed garbage truck.

“It took 45 minutes to an hour to get this guy out. He lost his leg, but he survived,” Niesel said. “He had five kids. They saved his life.”

Niesel’s career began at age 20 in 1989 working part time at both Franklin Park and Stone Park. His first full-time gig was in 1990 at the Lisle Woodridge Fire Protection District.

He started part time at Fox River and Countryside in 2015 as battalion chief, going full time in 2018 after retiring from Lisle Woodridge.

“When I was younger, it was purely the excitement of it,” Niesel said. “Saving people’s lives, being a paramedic, going into fire, all the technical rescues. ... In the beginning, it was about that, the excitement of being able to do all that and get better and better.”

“He has the respect of all the firefighter/paramedics who work here. He’s a great leader.”

—  Tracy Dunklau, administrative coordinator Fox River and Countryside Fire Rescue District

Being a battalion chief means being in charge of everything and everyone during that shift.

“Now it’s the opposite,” Niesel said of his leadership position. “It’s making everybody else better at it. That is the goal. All the young people coming through, bringing them up, training them to do what we do.”

Since he began his career, there’s been a countless number of young people who come in to check it out, college students taking internships.

“A lot of them are in fire service today and moving up,” Niesel said. “Looking back, when I think about the people who mentored me and the first people who got me into the fire service and the first paramedic instructors, I still fall back on a lot of that today.”

Niesel has been married for 28 years, has two grown children and lives in Plato Township.

When he’s not working, Niesel said he loves to hunt, fish, snow ski, go boating – anything outdoors.

Tracy Dunklau, the administrative coordinator for Fox River and Countryside, said Niesel is respected throughout the fire service industry.

“He has the respect of all the firefighter/paramedics who work here. He’s a great leader,” Dunklau said. “He is really even-keeled. He has a firefighter leader personality.”

After working so closely with Niesel the past eight years, Dunklau said she knows more about fishing and hunting than she ever thought possible.

“More than I need to know,” she said, laughing.